Ten Years of Change, 2009-2019

I don’t remember much of New Year’s 2009.

It was a blur then, and it’s even more of a blur now.

I was snowboarding for the week in Big White, British Columbia where I was likely blacked out at a party or a bar somewhere in the ski village. This year, ten years later, I'm with my sister and her three kids, writing this at 5:30pm on New Year’s Eve from the cutest, quietest cafe in Basel, Switzerland, a place which has made it in the top ten of the Telegraph’s "world’s most livable cities of 2019.” It’s been over a year since I had any alcohol; instead, I’m indulging in Switzerland’s staple beverage of hot chocolate while admiring how clean the streets are, how seamless the public transportation system is, and how peacefully quaint this little bistro is. My big plans for the countdown are to be blissfully soaking in a hot bath when the new year begins. These ingredients are a recipe for the most chill welcoming of 2020 - and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

I’ve done my time with the debauchery of new year’s eve parties, excessive alcohol consumption, and over-rated countdown events. And I have definitely had my share of the let-downs and hangovers to follow. I’m happy to say I’ve found ways to celebrate with deeper meaning than making a sloppy grand gesture of turning the corner to a new year.

I don’t even feel like it’s been a decade, rather different lives I’ve led from 2009 until now. We all know how much things can change in a second, a minute, or even a year. So reflecting on ten years is equally as shocking as it is expected.

Across the board, from horse races to Heathrow to heartbreak, I traversed a path from a Southern sorority girl 180 degrees to a new life as a soul searching medicine woman. My trajectory was altered entirely over the course of the decade.

When I left college, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted to do. I had spent five years partying at a university that didn’t challenge me academically, nor did it encourage the development of individuality, but rather propelled me to continue thinking, dressing and acting like the masses. I wore pearls and polo shirts with popped collars. I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch, dressed in sear-sucker on derby days and was a champion beer pong player, making me a pretty sought after accessory at fraternity parties. Influenced by the sea of greeks I was spending my time with, I also had conservative political views, or so I thought, as I was surrounded by degrading and offensive remarks of class and race differences that I never thought twice about. If there were semester electives that covered current events, figuring out life, or anything relating to what exists outside college, I was completely unaware.

During my senior year, I began to question and challenge the way I had spent my college career. The day after graduation, I scaled the walls of the South and decided I needed to culture up. There had to be more out there right? I took two months to explore Europe, which was by no means my first time traveling abroad, but definitely my first opportunity to travel on my own time, doing what I wanted to do. A credit card, an abundance of time and a lack of self-identity were all it took. I got the itch to keep moving and I got bored if I stayed in one place for too long. I became addicted to hearing different languages, converting currency, and living out of a backpack. 

Whenever I went back to the US, I experienced the culture shock of my own country. Every time I landed back in Virginia and worked enough to take more time off, I was immediately out of there and would jet set again, avoiding shallow friendships, responsibilities, or any idea of the “real world," as well as ignoring aspects of myself that I didn’t want to look at. In my unconscious mind, I was living my best life.

In the ten years since then, I’ve checked off items from a “bucket list” that I had never actually written out:

I got my SCUBA certification in Thailand and sky-dived over Argentinian wineries.

I biked the world’s most dangerous road in Bolivia and took a 44-hour boat ride to Antarctica.

I met my twin flame, one of the loves of my life, on the other side of the world where we later lived in the Australian outback, got in a motorbike accident after a three day hike in China, and filmed nonprofit work in Morocco together.

Soon after, I had my heart crushed into depression, and returned to the air to travel my way out of heartbreak. Since 2009, I’ve visited 57 countries and all seven continents. I haven’t spent more than two months in one place since 2008.

At one point, those nomadic accomplishments and accumulation of passport stamps were a priority, a point of pride, and the way I wanted to create a label of myself. No time limit, no responsibility, no strings attached (and still no real idea of who I was.) Just me, myself and adrenaline.

Along with everything else that changes over ten years, so do the things we have on our list of priorities. 

These days, care less about seeing the world, and more about preserving it. I’m reflecting on how much I’ve cost the Earth and negatively impacted the environment with my “bucket list” and “wanderlust.” It makes me cringe a little (okay, a lot) to know that one year I took 53 flights - and that as a westerner, my individual carbon budget for an entire year is spent in one round trip flight from NY to London, which adds almost one metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I have personally contributed a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the air over the years.

Old me would shrug it off and not care enough to research what that meant. Now me/new me knows that we, as a species, only have a carbon budget of 500 gigatons remaining over the next 8.5 years before a cataclysmic extinction begins.

After Greta Thunberg became the face of climate activism, I began to learn a lot more about how the way I live effects the planet. 

Now, I recycle and compost as much as I possibly can. I’ve gotten off pharmaceutical prescription medications and am a servant of one of nature’s strongest cleanses from the Amazon Rainforest. I am trying to fly way less this year, use the least amount of plastic possible and curate my social media profiles as a source of awareness for causes that matter.

I’m also exhausted. Mentally and physically. I used to pride myself quick turnarounds, flying almost 10,000 miles across the world in one direction from Australia with a 24-hour layover back home in Virginia and rebounding with infinite energy, continuing on down to South America where the adventure was taking me for a photography gig. All those quick turnarounds seemed to have ganged up on me and are now cumulatively and constantly slamming my energy levels, asking me to slow down.

Now, I crave stillness. My mind, body, and soul are begging to be in one place for at least three months; six months would be even better, and maybe even a year at some point in time. 

Ten years ago, I would eat and drink whatever I wanted and not think twice about animals, the environment or my blood pressure. I’ve now been vegetarian for five years - interspersed with long stints of veganism - and sober off alcohol since November 3, 2018. I've learned to respect animal lives, the planet, and my body. And though I feel guilty for all the ways I’ve contributed to the climate crisis, I do feel good about the changes I’m making and am grateful for all of the beautiful parts of this world that I was able to see so early on in my life. I’m owning up to the years of ’taking’ and living with myself as the priority, and I’m giving back for the benefit of all as best I know how.

Now, I feel a responsibility to keep animal populations from going extinct so future generations can see what incredible creatures we share the air with. I feel a responsibility to share imagery of melting glaciers, sea turtles with straws up their noses, and whales cut open with multiple tons of plastic in their bellies. I feel a responsibility to gently offer suggestions on more conscious, communal and considerate ways to live while trying to remain non-judgmental, accepting, and forgiving of those who live differently.

Now, I know who I am. Now, I am living with direction and purpose. I have a strong idea of who I am, why I’m here, and how I can serve.

I choose to spend my days in prayer and gratitude, outside in the elements as often as I can be, living as low-emissions as possible (still figuring this out) and offering healing modalities that I learned from Indigenous custodians of the Amazon Rainforest. Apparently I have done enough inner work for the Master Teacher Plants and Animal Spirits to choose me to serve their medicine, and this is my priority now.

I’ve gone from alcohol to Ayahuasca, keg stands to handstands, medication to meditation, and the sorority mansion to a Chevy van.

Ten years ago, if someone had told this is what I would be doing, I probably would have rolled my eyes and laughed it off with a “whatever.”

Now, I know I’m here to live a life that breaks away from the current of the crowd and to assist others on the path who are trying to do the same. I’m here to put conservation and preservation first. I’m here to be used as a conduit for Source energy in the healing of the collective, in whatever way that calls for.

The most important lesson I learned over all those years? That it’s not all about me.